Выдающая программа, потрясающийся успех

First published 28 March 2019 @ sólo algunas palabras

— А почему бы вам теперь не устроить свой вечер? Я бы такую пустил рекламу. На всех столбах, на всех стенах огромными буквами, что-о? Огромными буквами: «Выдающая программа...»
— Надо «ся», Гуськин.
— Кого-о?
— Надо «ся». Выдающаяся.
— Ну, пусть будет «ся». Разве я спорю. Чтобы дело разошлось из-за таких пустяков. Можно написать: «Потрясающийся успех».
— Не надо «ся», Гуськин.
— Теперь уже не надо? Ну, я так и думал, что не надо. Почему вдруг. Раз всегда все пишут «выдающая»... А тут дамские нервы, и давай «ся».

Тэффи, «Воспоминания»

Once again, Teffi’s Mr. Guskin provides us with some non-standard Russian which sounds comical. But why? In the quote, Mr. Guskin says выдающая instead of выдающаяся and потрясающийся instead of потрясающий. The latter word means “amazing” or “astounding”. Grammatically, this is a participle or, more precisely, adjectival participle (причастие), a verb form of потрясать, “to shake”, “to rock”, “to amaze”, “to astound” and such. Like English present participle, it is used as an adjective: «потрясающий успех» means “astounding success”.

Выдающаяся is also a participle, this time of the reflexive verb выдаваться, “to stand out”. This type of participle is called возвратное причастие (while the one derived from non-reflexive verb is невозвратное причастие). So «выдающаяся программа» means “outstanding programme”.

The words выдающая and потрясающийся exist in Russian too. They are participles of verbs выдавать “to give out” and потрясаться “to shake itself/themselves”, respectively. It is their use by Guskin that is dubious. While the drop of the affix -ся is noted in demotic or dialectal speech (трудящий ← трудящийся, выдающий ← выдающийся, годящий ← годящийся, моющий ← моющийся), the reverse, i.e. adding -ся, is really Guskin’s own, not exactly successful, attempt to please Teffi.

И совсем мне, — говорю, — не до смеху, Это чьё же, — говорю, — указанье, Чтоб такому выдающему цеху Не присваивать почётного званья?! Александр Галич, «История о том, как Клим Петрович добивался, чтоб его цеху присвоили звание Цеха Коммунистического Труда, и, не добившись этого, запил»

Modern English and modern Spanish have only two types of participle: the present participle and the past participle. In spite of that, I found that many Spanish-speaking students of Engish tend to confuse these two. So here’s a mnemonic: look for the n, which is found in the endings of both English and Spanish present participles. Thus Spanish -ndo corresponds to English -ing. No more confusion.

	English	Spanish
infinitive	dance	bailar
present participle	dancing	bailando
past participle	danced	bailado

In Russian there are more types of participles. The adjectival participles could be active (действительные) and passive (страдательные). There are also adverbial participles, or verbal adverbs, which in Russian are classified as a separate part of speech, деепричастия. Moreover, Russian participles can take either present or past tense, so one verb can have up to six participle forms [1].

Let’s have a look at the imperfective verb любить, “to love”, which gives rise to all six participles.

• Действительное причастие настоящего времени (Present active): любящий “loving”, “who loves”
• Действительное причастие прошедшего времени (Past active): любивший “who loved”
• Страдательное причастие настоящего времени (Present passive): любимый “being loved”
• Страдательное причастие прошедшего времени (Past passive): любленный “who/that was (being) loved”
• Деепричастие настоящего времени (Adverbial present active:) любя “(while) loving”
• Деепричастие прошедшего времени (Adverbial past active): любив, любивши “having been loving”

If you listen to love songs or read romantic literature in Russian, you’ve bound to come across many of these words (although you’ll need to look hard for любленный) [2].

You may also remember that Russian perfective verbs do not have present tense and, consequently, no present participles. Thus a perfective verb, say полюбить, “to fall in love”, has only past participles in standard Russian:

• Действительное причастие прошедшего времени (Past active): полюбивший “who fell in love”
• Страдательное причастие прошедшего времени (Past passive): полюбленный “who/that had been fallen in love” (by somebody)
• Деепричастие прошедшего времени (Adverbial past active): полюбив, полюбивши “having fallen in love”

This diversity of Russian participles may cause translation problems. It is often difficult to translate English titles (of books, films etc.) to Russian without knowing the context. When it is eventually done, the Russian titles tend to contain more information than the English originals. Also, translations of the original Russian titles to English may appear ambiguous, while their unambiguous translations look quite awkward.

English title	Russian title	Literal translation of the Russian title
Gone with the Wind	→ Унесённые ветром	They who are gone with the wind
Born Free	→ Рождённая свободной	She who was born free
The Missing	→ Пропавший без вести	He who disappeared without a trace
Singin’ in the Rain	→ Поющие под дождём	They who are singing in the rain
Running on Waves	← Бегущая по волнам	She who is running on the waves
Burnt by the Sun	← Утомлённые солнцем	They who were wearied by the sun

Importantly, the participles in Russian provide an elegant way to express difference between active and passive participants in a feast, as could be seen in the 1979 comedy Осенний марафон (Autumn Marathon) by Georgiy Daneliya:

• Тостующий пьёт до дна. “He who is proposing a toast drinks bottom up”
• Тостуемый пьёт до дна. “He who has a toast proposed to him drinks bottom up”

This subtle difference aside, the final result is the same: everybody’s drunk.

In case of our friends потрясать and выдаваться, not all participles can be formed.

infinitive	потрясать		выдаваться
participle	present	past	present	past
active	потрясающий	потрясавший	выдающийся	выдававшийся
passive	потрясаемый	—	—	—
adverbial	потрясая	потрясав	выдаваясь	выдававшись

In general, Russian reflexive verbs don’t form passive participles. However, I can’t think of a rule that forbids me to make the past passive participle of потрясать, viz. потряса́нный.

Overuse of active participles can fill your speech with too many fricatives, as in the novelty song by Leonid Sergeev:

Дорогие товарищи брачующиеся, Вот стоите вы такие улыбающиеся, Вот стоите вы такие любующиеся, Своими отношениями узаканивающиеся! Подойдите, пожалуйста, поближе, расписывающиеся, Поднесите свидетеля уже нажравшегося, Распишитесь вот здесь, здесь, здесь И унесите свидетеля, совсем, к сожалению, обпившегося! Леонид Сергеев, «Свадьба №1»

Adjectival participles can undergo nominalisation. In the same fashion as nominalised adjectives, they “inherit” their gender from the noun they were originally modifying, which is by now lost. For example, the neuter noun пресмыкающееся “reptile” is a nominalised participle derived from the verb пресмыкаться “to creep”, “to crawl”, and replaces the phrase «пресмыкающееся животное», “creeping animal”. When the lost noun stands for a person, both masculine and feminine versions are possible, for instance (m.) заведующий and (f.) заведующая “director”, “chief”, “head”, “governor”; same with управляющий “manager”, нападающий “forward” (e.g. in football), обвиняемый “accused”, заключённый “prisoner”, etc. Some of such nouns tend to be used in plural: отдыхающие “holidaymakers”, трудящиеся “workers”, and, from the song above, брачующиеся, “bride and groom”.

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1. Although future participles are not considered a part of standard Russian, there is no reason why they could not be derived from perfective verbs. In fact, these participles do exist: встанущий, приедущий, согреющий, увидящий, услышащий etc. See, for example, Михаил Эпштейн, «Есть ли будущее у причастий будущего времени?» (2007). Ksenia Shagal attests “the comparatively high level of acceptability” of future active perfective participle among native Russian speakers.
2. Both passive and active participles have to agree with the noun in number, gender and case. In the example above, любящий, любивший, любимый and любленный are given in masculine singular nominative. Adverbial participles don’t inflect.

Nostalghia

a film by Andrei Tarkovsky

Nostalghia was the final film screened in Teatro Guiniguada as part of the Tarkovsky cycle. This was the first time I watched it in a quarter of a century; it turned out that have forgotten quite a few things since then. For example, was Ностальгия dubbed or voiced-over when I saw it in Russia? Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano), for the most part of the movie, speaks Italian, but I distinctly remember her saying «Знаешь, кто такой зануда?» or «Говорит будто Фидель Кастро» in Russian. This time, in VOSE, I could at last hear her voice clearly.

For me, nostalgia is an inherently beautiful emotion. Tarkovsky’s own Solaris and especially Зеркало are full of it; Nostalghia, in spite of its name, is not [1]. In a way, Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovsky) is a stereotypical exponent of the “mysterious Russian soul”, who does not (want to, or try to) see anything good outside of the Motherland: «Надоели мне все ваши красоты хуже горькой редьки» (“I’m fed up with all your beauties”) he mutters in the beginning of the film. The only reason for him to be in Italy, apparently, is another Russian intellectual, the 18^th-century composer Pavel Sosnovsky. When Eugenia asks if Sosnovsky was successful or happy at all upon returning to Russia, Gorchakov reluctantly explains that no, the composer started to drink (surprise surprise) and eventually committed suicide. Gorchakov himself is unable live here and now, in colour: his true life and his love must be in black and white, beyond the reach. Worse still, the final scene implies that a Russian simply cannot enter, say, an Italian cathedral without transplanting there his izba and a puddle (and making it all black and white).

But Yankovsky wouldn’t be Yankovsky if he just portrayed a grumpy, judgemental, misogynistic asshole [2]. Sure, his Gorchakov is all that, but he is also sensitive, lovable, and has sense of humour which, while does not save the poor writer, saves the film. The story of the rescuer and the rescued is priceless; also, it explains the puddle.

Горчаков: Есть одна история. Один человек спасает другого из огромной, глубокой лужи, понимаешь? Спасает с риском для собственной жизни. Ну, вот они лежат у края этой глубокой лужи, тяжело дышат, устали. Наконец, спасённый спрашивает:
— Ты что?..
— Как что? Я тебя спас.
— Дурак! Я там живу!..
«Я там живу.» Обиделся очень.

Gorchakov: Here’s a story. A man saves another from a huge, deep puddle, you understand? Saves him, risking his own life. Well, they are both lying on the edge of this deep puddle, breathing heavily, tired. Finally, the rescued man asks: “Why did you do that?..”
“Why what? I just saved you.”
“You idiot! I live there!..”
“I live there.” He took great offense.

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1. What it has is not nostalgia but тоска, a concept so awfully sad that Finns had to import it, as tuska, together with quite a few other depressing Russian words.
2. Anatoly Solonitsyn, who was originally cast in the lead role, already played a similar character in Сталкер.

Acer Chromebook 14 CB3-431

by Acer

I keep losing things.

The most outrageous thing about this particular loss was that I wasn’t even aware of it until the day after, about noon, when I opened my backpack where there should have been my Chromebook. It was not there. The power cable and the mouse, yes. Laptop, no.

I distinctly remember having it there a day before, as well as taking it out at the airport security. The problem with air travel in winter, even if it is Spanish winter, is that you have too many clothes on. And then you have to take your coat and your jacket off, maybe even your boots, if you’re lucky, and they don’t fit in those trays anymore, and you take another one. The security guy insisted that I did not cover the notebook with my jacket, so I shoved it in another tray. And then, when they successfully reemerged on the other side, I stacked all three or four of them on top of each other and moved on to the free table, to put the stuff back on me. Keys, mobile phone, belt and suchlike. I must have left the laptop in the bottom tray. I must have.

I found the Lost&Found page of the airport of Valencia with a contact telephone number. As much as I hate phoning, this time I had to. The person I talked to, in English, was very polite and helpful. I explained what happened; he advised me to phone back in quarter an hour. I did. He said that yes, they have located the notebook. Can you come here, he asked. I am in Las Palmas, I said. Oh, he said. Do you happen to know somebody who lives a bit closer and can fetch it, he mused. Yes I do, I said.

He suggested my sending him an email describing my loss and authorising that kind person, with such and such ID, to collect it, plus a photo of my passport attached. I did exactly that and pleaded my friend to visit the Lost&Found office when she can.

When she got there, later the same day, she messaged me asking for the password. I sent it to her. I think it’s a normal procedure — they need some evidence that the device is mine. She unlocked it, they handed it over.

How easy and efficient it was, I thought. I remember a story I heard from a German scientist I met on a conference in Italy twenty years ago. He was travelling by train. Surprised by the timely arrival at the destination, he rushed out of the carriage leaving his laptop behind. On realising that, he immediately went to the police station and filed the report. Fortunately, the computer was quickly located and brought to the hotel where we stayed the following day. Needless to say, he was very pleased and praised the politeness and efficiency of Italian police over their German colleagues who (according to him) would question you for hours who are you and where did you come from and how did you dare to forget your property in the train. Well, that was in 1999.

Now let me say a few words about this Chromebook. My brother bought it for me last year when I visited him in the States, so you can imagine how annoyed I was with myself to lose it. It’s literally the coolest computer I ever had in my hands (or placed on my lap, for that matter), thanks to its aluminium case. Also, since there are no moving parts, it is virtually silent. It boots in seconds. It has really bright 14-inch anti-glare screen (specified as a full-HD but, according to WhatIsMyScreenResolution.NET, I can get resolution up to 2194x1234). It served me well in the classroom — videos, PowerPoints, Kahoot! quizzes, you name it — and the battery lasted the whole damn working day. I sure would appreciate more internal memory but for now I can live with 32 GB. And why there’s no SD card slot?!

I can’t say I’m over the moon about Chrome OS — I think this machine deserves decent software on its own, not only Android apps. Luckily, since 2018 you can also install Linux apps on it. I tried that and it works. I put there LibreOffice and Inkscape just a few days before my flight to Gran Canaria.

With Christmas holidays and all that, my friend only was able to go to the post office after the New Year. Even then, she was warned that the laptop is unlikely to arrive before Reyes. It took longer than that.

The day she sent it off, I got both email and SMS with the tracking number so I was able to check the shipping progress on the Correos website. In practice, for five days or so I was stuck with its original location, that is, Valencia, followed by the terse “en camino” (“on the way”). Finally, it arrived to Canaries.

Último estado del envío: En tramitación aduanera

Se ha emitido aviso al destinatario para poder completar la tramitación

I started to worry. We dealt with customs before, and every time they wanted money. Normally they would send you a paper enquiring about the value of the imported goods so they could determine how much you must pay on top of the postage. In theory, that should be only applicable to new goods, but you never know. In any case, I still didn’t have any notice.

I went to the post office for a consultation. They told me basically what I already knew and their advice was to wait a couple more days. I did that and, naturally, in a couple more days came back. This time I’ve got the email address of the customs. Write to them and explain the matter, the postal worker said. So I did.

Dear Sir/Madam, I wrote, I am waiting for a package sent on January the 2^nd, with tracking code XYZ, containing a laptop I lost at the Valencia Airport. The laptop is used and doesn’t even have a power cable. The package should have been delivered to such and such post office. I was supposed to get a message from you but I didn’t. Waiting for your response. Big hug xoxoxo Yours sincerely.

Imagine my joy mixed with amusement when I received their response the very next day.

Buenos días,

La información que nos ha enviado es correcta. Le llevarán el envío a su domicilio. Si no estuviese, le dejarán un aviso para que usted vaya a retirarlo a la oficina de Correos que le corresponda. Puede realizar el seguimiento de su envío en nuestra página web introduciendo el código del mismo.

Gracias por utilizar nuestros servicios

Saludos

But of course the information I sent them was correct. What, I wonder, would they do if I hadn’t provided them with that correct information? Anyway, the next morning I got the SMS saying that my parcel is waiting for me in the post office. Contrary to what the email said, they never planned to deliver it to my home address. Which suited me fine. I showed my ID, they gave the box to me. It all took just four weeks. Happy end of story.

No beer, no subject

First published 17 March 2019 @ sólo algunas palabras

— Добрый день. — Добрый день. — Пиво есть? — Пива нет. — Пива нет? — Пива нет. — Добрый день. — Добрый день. — Добрый день. — Добрый день. — Пиво есть? — Пива нет. — Пива нет? — Пива нет. — Добрый день. — Добрый день. — Добрый день. — Добрый день. — Пива нет? — Пиво есть. — Пиво есть? — Пиво есть. — Добрый день. — Добрый день.

Alas, Google couldn’t help me to identify the real author of the poem which I remember since my university days, so let’s call it “folklore”. This dialogue is made up of very short but complete sentences, every one consists of two words only. As discussed earlier, the Russian sentences can be both two-member (двусоставные) and one-member (односоставные). «Пиво есть?» and «Пиво есть.» are classical two-member sentences with subject пиво (beer) and predicate есть (there is). I trust you know that «Добрый день» means “Good day”. A common greeting, it is formally a nominal sentence (назывное предложение), a type of one-member sentence that, just like its English counterpart, has no predicate. «Пива нет?» and «Пива нет.», however, are puzzling.

Poster by Vladimir Chaika

Let’s compare «Пиво есть» (There is beer) with «Пива нет» (There is no beer). The sad fact of beer absence in English is indicated by laconic “no”. Likewise, in Spanish: “Hay cerveza” and “No hay cerveza”. Easy. Not so in Russian.

First, note that пиво (nominative) inflects to become пива (genitive) in the negative sentence [1]. This change is so universal that every time Russian speakers need to construct a genitive form, they would mentally ask, «нет кого? нет чего?».

Wait a minute, I hear you saying. In Russian the subject, when it is a noun or pronoun, is always in nominative. So, пива cannot be the subject here, right? Right. In «Пива нет», not only beer but also the subject are missing.

Second, what about the predicate? We usually expect a verb to function as one, or form a part of it. But in this sentence we don’t seem to have a verb either. In school, we were taught that нет (no) is a particle (частица), the opposite of да (yes). On the contrary, in our example нет is the opposite of the predicate есть, which is the present indicative form of the verb быть (to be). Logic tells us that нет must be the predicate then.

Our dialogue, grammatically, is in present. To make sure that we are really talking about present, say, today, and not about the beer situation in general, we can be more specific:

— Сегодня пиво есть?
— Сегодня пива нет.

We can leave the present for a while and enquire about the recent past, such as yesterday:

— А вчера пиво было?
— И вчера пива тоже не было.

How sad is that! Note, however, that in the past our verbs behave as expected: the negative is formed by placing the particle не in front of the verb.

But don’t despair just yet. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have better luck.

— А завтра пива тоже не будет?
— Завтра пиво будет.

You see? If было and будет are, respectively, the past and the future of есть, then не было and не будет are, respectively, the past and the future of нет. So this нет is a verb. Most probably it is a contraction of не + есть; cf. its archaic form несть.

OK, we’ve established that «Пива нет» has no subject and identified нет as our predicate. What is пива then? Why, it is the object.

But isn’t it fascinating that in Russian the subject of the affirmative sentence become the object of the negative one? I think it is.

«Пива нет» is an example of impersonal sentence (безличное предложение). It is not important who is responsible for the absence of beer; what is important that there’s none. Curiously, this type of negative sentence remains impersonal even when we specify the potential owner of, alas, still missing beer:

— У тебя пиво есть?
— У меня пива нет.

Can’t we simply say: “Do you have beer?” — “I don’t have beer”, you may wonder. It turns out, in modern Russian the verb иметь (to have) is rarely used to indicate actual possession [2]. It is like Russians, while mentioning the location («у меня» literally means “near me”), are afraid to admit they own anything physical, lest somebody (e.g. the government) take it away. Instead, Russians would turn to reflexive verbs such as иметься (to be available) or найтись (to happen to be found), with this latter in the future tense — being a perfective verb, it does not have present tense.

— У самих револьверы найдутся...

М. А. Булгаков, «Собачье сердце»

Копейку я сунул в карман и остановился, обнаружив, что в том же кармане имеется еще один пятак.

Аркадий и Борис Стругацкие, «Понедельник начинается в субботу»

Not only are Russians reluctant “to have” things, they also love to ask negative questions, as if preparing themselves for a likely disappointment. To Russian ear, even abrupt «Пива нет?» sounds more polite than «Пиво есть?».

Хлестаков (громко и скоро). Взаймы рублей тысячу.
Бобчинский. Такой суммы, ей-богу, нет. А нет ли у вас, Петр Иванович?
Добчинский. При мне-с не имеется, потому что деньги мои, если изволите знать, положены в приказ общественного призрения.

Н. В. Гоголь, «Ревизор»

— Сигареты у вас не найдётся? – спросила она без всякой приветливости.

Братья Стругацкие, «Град обреченный»

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1. And vice versa, to transform an affirmative sentence into negative, it is not enough simply to replace нет with есть: we also need to change the genitive back to nominative.

   — Вы просите песен? Их есть у меня!

   «Интервенция»
   In this quote, the genitive (их, i.e. песен) is used on purpose to emulate the Odessa dialect. Thus, instead of grammatically correct but boring «у меня есть песни», the Odessite (supposedly) says «у меня есть песен».
2. Whenever I encounter the verb иметь in a sense “to possess”, I always suspect it being a poor translation from English or German. Of course, it could be — and is — employed to a comic effect:

   Субъект монотонно бубнил:
   — Имею имение за Варшавою, конечно, небольшое...
   — Имею доход от имения, конечно, небольшой...
   Снится это мне или не снится?
   — Имею луга в имении, конечно, небольшие...
   — Имею тётку в Варшаве...
   — Конечно, небольшую, — неожиданно для себя перебиваю я.

   Тэффи, «Воспоминания»

¡Aquí Estamos! Ciclo de cortos dirigidos por mujeres

On occasion of the International Women’s Day, there was a free screening of short films directed by women in Monopol on 13—14 March. I went there on 13^th and... had to go back home as they ran out of tickets! So I returned the following day by the box office opening, which happened to be 16:30. (I have to say that I couldn’t find the box office opening times at the Monopol website but it looks like they start to sell tickets 30 minutes before the first screening of the day.) I got my ticket but, to my chagrin, somewhere between the buses and the cinema I lost (how?!) my yellow hoody, which served me well for the last five years. The programme consisted of five shorts: Miss Wamba, Centrifugado, Mai, Marta and Madres de luna, all very different and all very good. I also was impressed that there were two Spanish sign language interpreters (during the short introduction, we were told that it was for the first time in Monopol history!)

Miss Wamba

Directed by Estefanía Cortes
Starring: Ruth Díaz, Núria Gago and Ramón Barea

A woman tormented by her past meets a recently widowed old man with whom she immediately connects.

Centrifugado

Directed by Mireia Noguera
Starring: Rikar Gil (1976–2017), Matilde Fonollar and Marina Esteve

A young man helps a middle-aged woman to carry the laundry to her apartment. Once they are inside, the lady does not seem willing to let him go.

Mai

Directed by Marta González
Starring: Aida Flix, Aida Qui, María Pijuán, Olga Masot, Marisol Lavín and Franses de Dios

Three old ladies spend every afternoon sitting on a bench, next to the main street of their village. The arrival of a mysterious pair of girls turns into the main topic of discussion among the women.

Marta

Directed by Lucía Forner
Starring: Thaïs Blume and Daniel Pérez Prada

Marta aspires to be a serial killer, and she wants Carlos to be her first victim.

Madres de luna

Directed by Alicia Albares
Starring: Ingrid Rubio, Ramiro Blas, Eric Francés, Monika Kowalska, Irene Virgüez and Yoly Sey

Four women from different places in the world find some connection between each other through the voice of an exceptional baby: the little girl who never got to be born but lived in their bellies.

Сталкер

a film by Andrei Tarkovsky

Stalker was my first encounter with Tarkovsky’s cinema, and I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed. I went to see it with my brother and my mum, who later noted, “I didn’t understand what’s so sci-fiey here”. I didn’t either. I loved Strugatsky brothers but Сталкер has precious little to do with the book, Пикник на обочине (Roadside Picnic) on which the film was ostensibly based. Watching it again and again in the 1980s, I grew to like (if not exactly love) this bleak movie as well as to understand my mum’s comment.

Isn’t it strange that the ominous Chernobyl-esque Zone has (at least some) colour while the “real” world outside it, apart from the final scenes with Martyshka, is monochrome? Not to me. Not now. I think that for the grownups life in 1970s Soviet Union was not particularly colourful. But I was a child. I was lucky: I was able to see stuff in full colour on our black and white telly, Рубин-110.

Speaking of colours: I’m sure that what they were showing in Teatro Guiniguada was not the 2017 restored version, which, judging from trailer, must be closer, colour-wise, to the version I saw some 40 years ago. Here the sepia sequences looked almost greyscale.

For all its focus on three men’s overlong venture to the Zone — in Timur’s opinion, the film would be perfect if it were about 40 minutes shorter — it is the final, fourth-wall-breaking monologue by the Stalker’s wife (Alisa Freindlich) that suddenly brings humanity as well as sense to the story.

Бременские музыканты

a musical by Yuri Entin, Vasily Livanov and Gennady Gladkov
a film by Inessa Kovalevskaya

Rock music-wise, 1970s really started in 1969. Abbey Road, Concerto for Group and Orchestra, In the Court of the Crimson King, Led Zeppelin, Yes and Woodstock defined the shape of rock to come, just like, a decade earlier, Ornette Coleman and other giants did it for jazz. And then there was The Bremen Town Musicians. I can’t honestly tell you that I remember it since 1969 but I am sure that I first heard this mini-musical on the EP that my cousin brought us. This EP, albeit badly scratched, survived in our house till the late 1980s when I finally found a replacement.

Of course, not only I and my brother (and then, Yuri and Timur, too) — whole generations grew up on this story and this music. Still, I think of it as “ours”. There was a group of trees not far from our house where we loved to play and, by some reason, referred to as «Бременские». Maybe it was my mum who called it that first. When, years later, I read the Grimms’ version, I was sorely disappointed. Without either Troubadour or Princess, it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, I decided.

It aged beautifully. As the end credits roll, the main “rock” theme («Ничего на свете лучше нету») is played as an instrumental with a strong Latin feel. The trumpet goes higher and higher. The music ends. My hands ache to flip the vinyl to the A-side and start from the beginning.

Давным-давно на белом свете жили глупые короли, прекрасные принцессы, страшные лесные разбойники и весёлые трубадуры...

Который час?

First published 4 March 2019 @ sólo algunas palabras

There are two common ways of asking “What time is it?” in Russian: «Который час?» (literally, “Which hour?”) and «Сколько времени?» (“How much time?”). When I were a lad, they taught us in school that the correct way is the first one, even though it may sound a bit old-fashioned now.

But, as we know, it is not enough to ask: it also could be nice to know what the answer means. There are a few curious things about telling time in Russian. One is, both cardinal and ordinal numbers are used: cf. «десять часов» (ten o’clock) and «десятый час» (the tenth hour). Another is, the ordinal number H+1^th is used to name the hour between H:00 and H:59. For example, «десятый час» (10^th hour) means any time between 9 and 10 o’clock. We use exactly the same logic when we give the name 20^th century to the 19xx years. Yet I found that both English and Spanish speakers get confused with “Russian” way of naming hours.

In her memoirs, the Russian writer Teffi describes the dialogue between entrepreneur Guskin (Гуськин) and herself:

— Ну конечно. Новое дело. Опоздали на вокзал! — Быть не может! Который же час? — Семь часов, десятый. Поезд в десять. Все кончено. Тэффи, «Воспоминания»

Guskin is so worried that they would miss the ten o’clock train that he runs to Teffi’s place at seven o’clock in the morning. Him saying «Семь часов, десятый» (when for anyone else it is only восьмой) adds to the comic effect.

Nine o’clock is девять часов. If we want to be precise, we say «девять часов ровно», “nine o’clock sharp”. We can safely drop the word час when it is clear that we talk about time:

— Сейчас ровно девять.

There are also two ways of telling hours and minutes. One is completely straightforward: 9:10 is «девять часов десять минут» (nine hours ten minutes). This is the “official” way of telling time, such as you can hear on the radio. The cardinal numerals for both hours and minutes are in nominative; the nouns час and минута, when in plural, change to genitive or accusative, as discussed elsewhere.

Another one is shorter but potentially confusing: «десять минут десятого», literally “ten minutes of the tenth” [1]. Here the cardinal numeral (minutes) remains in nominative but the ordinal one (hour) is in genitive. Which is kind of logical as these minutes belong to that hour.

For any number of minutes M between H:00 and H:30 we can use the “short” formula «M минут H+1-го». For 15 minutes, there is a special name, четверть (quarter), and for 30 minutes, половина (half). So 9:15 is четверть десятого, “quarter of the tenth”, and 9:30 is половина десятого, or полдесятого, “half of the tenth”. The German speakers will have no difficulties dealing with it, as they use halb zehn, “half of ten” for 9:30. However, in Spanish the same time will be las nueve y media “the nine and a half”, while in English we use “half past nine” (Brits say just “half nine”).

After H:30, the “long” way remains the same but for the “short” way we have to count backward from our “target” hour, H+1. So, 9:40 will be “long” «девять часов сорок минут» (nine hours forty minutes), or “short” «без двадцати минут десять» (ten without twenty minutes). Between H:30 and H+1:00, mentioning минуты is optional, so most people will just say «без двадцати десять» (ten without twenty). This is very similar to Spanish las diez menos veinte and, indeed, English “twenty to ten”. Of course, 9:45 will be «без четверти десять» (ten without quarter). Curiously, now the target hour is in nominative but the minutes are in genitive (the preposition без invariably requires the genitive).

When the hour is already known from the context, one can dispose of naming the hour and only talk about minutes:

Я должен прийти к девяти <часам> На работу свою. Но сейчас уже без десяти <девять часов>, А я только встаю. Виктор Цой

The “short” way of telling time exists only between one and twelve (0 < H < 11), so in case of ambiguity we have to indicate the time of the day: утро (morning), день (noon or afternoon), вечер (evening) or ночь (night), once again, in genitive. For example, 09:00 is девять часов утра (nine in the morning), 12:00 — двенадцать часов дня (twelve noon), 15:00 — три часа дня (three in the afternoon), 21:00 — девять часов вечера (nine in the evening), 24:00 — двенадцать часов ночи (twelve o’clock at night), 03:00 — три часа ночи (three in the morning). 12:00 is also known as полдень (midday) and 24:00 as полночь (midnight); the time after midday and after midnight could be specified with (sounding a bit archaic) пополудни and пополуночи, respectively. In all “short” time expressions the words часа/часов are optional, so we can say четыре утра, двенадцать ночи and so on. For one o’clock, however, the word час is obligatory; on the contrary, the word один (one) is not used. Thus 01:00 is «час ночи» and 13:00 is «час дня».

Russian	English	Spanish
час	one o’clock	la una
два часа	two o’clock	las dos
(ровно) девять часов	nine o’clock (sharp)	las nueve (en punto)
девять часов утра	nine in the morning	las nueve de la mañana
двенадцать часов дня; полдень	twelve noon; midday	las doce de la mañana; mediodía
три часа дня; три часа пополудни	three in the afternoon	las tres de la tarde
девять часов вечера	nine in the evening	las nueve de la tarde
двенадцать часов ночи; полночь	twelve in the night; midnight	las doce de la noche; medianoche
три часа ночи; три часа пополуночи	three in the morning	las tres de la madrugada
четверть четвёртого	quarter past three	las tres y cuarto
половина четвёртого	half (past) three	las tres y media
без четверти четыре	quarter to four	las cuatro menos cuarto

Everybody who lived in Soviet Union should remember the standard message broadcast daily at 15:00 Moscow Time on the radio:

Передаём сигналы точного времени. Начало шестого сигнала соответствует пятнадцати часам московского времени. [Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, Beeeeeep!] Говорит Москва. В столице пятнадцать часов, в Ашхабаде — шестнадцать, в Ташкенте — семнадцать, в Караганде — восемнадцать, в Красноярске — девятнадцать, в Иркутске — двадцать, в Чите — двадцать один, во Владивостоке и Хабаровске — двадцать два, в Южно-Сахалинске — двадцать три, в Петропавловске-Камчатском — полночь [2].

In this famous message, the names of the cities of the former USSR where the times were listed are given in prepositional case (предложный падеж) and preceded by в (in), therefore Караганда → в Караганде, Владивосток → во Владивостоке, etc. while the numeral (or, in case of полночь, a noun) is in nominative.

To indicate at which time or when something is happening, we also use the preposition в (variously translated as “at”, “on” or “in”). This time, however, в requires accusative case. Luckily, for masculine inanimate noun such as час, that means no change of form from nominative, so there won’t be any change in the expressions of time discussed above, e.g. три часа дня → в три часа дня.

o’clock	preposition	numeral	noun
1	в	один	час
		Acc / m	Acc / m / s
2	в	два	часа
		Acc / m	Gen / m / s
3–4	в	три, четыре	часа
		Acc	Gen / m / s
5–20	в	пять — двадцать	часов
		Acc	Gen / m / pl
21	в	двадцать один	час
		Acc / m	Acc / m / s
22	в	двадцать два	часа
		Acc / m	Gen / m / s
23–24	в	двадцать три, двадцать четыре	часа
		Acc	Gen / m / s

Let’s see what’s happening with feminine nouns such as минута, четверть and половина:

minutes	preposition	numeral	noun
1, 21, 31, 41, 51	в	(x) одну	минуту
		Acc / f	Acc / f / s
2, 22, 32, 42, 52	в	(x) две	минуты
		Acc / f	Acc / f / pl
3, 4, 23, 24, 33, 34, 43, 44, 53, 54	в	(x) три, (x) четыре	минуты
		Acc	Acc / f / pl
the rest	в	пять, шесть, etc.	минут
		Acc	Gen / f / pl
quarter	в	одну	четверть
		Acc / f	Acc / f / s
half	в	одну	половину
		Acc / f	Acc / f / s
1, 21	без	(двадцати) одной	минуты
		Gen / f	Gen / f / s
the rest	без	двух, трёх, четырёх, etc.	минут
		Gen	Gen / f / pl
quarter	без	одной	четверти
		Gen / f	Gen / f / s

Now we can combine the hours with minutes: в одну минуту первого; в два часа двадцать две минуты; в четверть четвёртого; в десять часов десять минут; в половину одиннадцатого (or пол-одиннадцатого); (в) без пяти пять; (в) без одной двенадцать and so on [3].

Can we use в together with expressions like «десятый час»? Yes we can, but here we have to use yet another case, and a rather unusual one: locative (местный падеж). By now the Russian locative has almost completely merged with prepositional case, however there is a group of nouns where one can see the differences in declension between prepositional proper and locative after the prepositions в and на. So, первый час → в первом часу, второй час → во втором часу etc.

Днём, Во втором часу, Заблудилась Принцесса в лесу. Генрих Сапгир, «Принцесса и Людоед»

To set the boundaries of a period of time, we use prepositions с or от (“from”, “since”) and до (“to”, “till”), all followed by genitive, for instance: «у меня классы с десяти до полвторого» (I have classes from ten to half past one).

«Игра на музыкальных инструментах от 5 часов дня до 7 часов утра воспрещается».

М. А. Булгаков, «Собачье сердце»

Вопросы любви и смерти не волновали Ипполита Матвеевича Воробьянинова, хотя этими вопросами по роду своей службы он ведал с девяти утра до пяти вечера ежедневно с получасовым перерывом для завтрака.

Ильф и Петров, «Двенадцать стульев»

__________________________________________________

1. They never say «десять минут десятого часа», “ten minutes of the tenth hour”.
2. By some reason, time for the last city on the list was given as «полночь» rather than more formal «ноль часов» (zero hours). As most Soviet citizens were reminded that Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky even exists only at this particular time, the city acquired a joking reputation of a place of eternal midnight.
3. The combination of prepositions в без sounds rather awkward; here в can be omitted without any change of meaning.

See also: ¿Qué hora es?

Зеркало

a film by Andrei Tarkovsky

Pyatigorsk, summer 1981. I went to see Зеркало (Mirror) together with my brother and my cousin — thanks to the latter who found out about the film’s screening in a regional newspaper. Зеркало was unlike any film, Soviet or foreign, that I’ve seen until then. I was blown away. The same cannot be said about most of the audience, I’m afraid.

It so happened that the following year, Margarita Terekhova came to my school in Odintsovo. (It was fairly typical for Soviet celebrities including writers, actors and cosmonauts to visit schools and meet with the students.) She was best known for her roles of Diana from The Dog in the Manger and Milady from D’Artagnan and Three Musketeers. Most of the evening Margarita Borisovna was speaking about her work in TV and theatre; in the end, there was some time for questions. I raised my hand and asked her: “Could you tell us please a bit about your work with Tarkovsky?” The awkward silence ensued. Terekhova clearly did not expect that question from a 15-years-old boy. The rest of the audience, teachers and students alike, had no idea who I was talking about and asked each other in whispers: “Who?”, “What?” [1]. Finally, Terekhova thanked me for an “interesting question” and said that sure, of course, but it would take two evenings like this one, you know, but maybe, who knows, we can do that in the future...

I have to disappoint my readers: there never was another opportunity to meet her and hear about Tarkovsky. However, as a result of that meeting, I temporarily became a minor celebrity in our school. They kept asking me, what was the name of that director again? Luckily, after a week or two, they left me in peace.

Зеркало remains my favourite of all Tarkovsky’s films. In Russia, I never lived in a traditional country house like the one in the movie (the house we lived in Finland five years ago was more like it); yet, through some magic, it became the idea of my childhood home.

This time, we went to watch the film with Timur. Although he confessed that it is “a little weird”, he seemed to like it overall and especially the wartime sequence with Asafiev, an orphan boy who interprets the drill command Кругом! (“About face!”) as a 360° turn. Just like it was the case with Андрей Рублёв last week, I discovered no “new” (I mean, forgotten) bits; but I was pleased to realise that I understand the dialogue in the scene with Spanish immigrants (in the Mirror’s “now”), one of whom appears to be a big fan of matador Palomo Linares [2].

Life, Life is a poem by Arseni Tarkovsky, the director’s father. In the film, it is narrated by the author over the wartime footage of Sivash crossing followed by Asafiev climbing the hill in a visual quote of Pieter Bruegel’s painting The Hunters in the Snow.

Арсений Тарковский	Arseni Tarkovsky
Жизнь, жизнь	Life, Life translation by Alex Nemser and Nariman Skakov
I Предчувствиям не верю и примет Я не боюсь. Ни клеветы, ни яда Я не бегу. На свете смерти нет. Бессмертны все. Бессмертно всё. Не надо Бояться смерти ни в семнадцать лет, Ни в семьдесят. Есть только явь и свет, Ни тьмы, ни смерти нет на этом свете. Мы все уже на берегу морском, И я из тех, кто выбирает сети, Когда идет бессмертье косяком. II Живите в доме — и не рухнет дом. Я вызову любое из столетий, Войду в него и дом построю в нём. Вот почему со мною ваши дети И жены ваши за одним столом — А стол один и прадеду и внуку: Грядущее свершается сейчас, И если я приподнимаю руку, Все пять лучей останутся у вас. Я каждый день минувшего, как крепью, Ключицами своими подпирал, Измерил время землемерной цепью И сквозь него прошёл, как сквозь Урал. III Я век себе по росту подбирал. Мы шли на юг, держали пыль над степью; Бурьян чадил; кузнечик баловал, Подковы трогал усом, и пророчил, И гибелью грозил мне, как монах. Судьбу свою к седлу я приторочил; Я и сейчас, в грядущих временах, Как мальчик, привстаю на стременах. Мне моего бессмертия довольно, Чтоб кровь моя из века в век текла. За верный угол ровного тепла Я жизнью заплатил бы своевольно, Когда б её летучая игла Меня, как нить, по свету не вела.	1 I don’t believe in presentiments, and signs Don’t frighten me. I run from neither slander Nor poison. In the world, there is no death: All are immortal. Everything is immortal. One should not be afraid of death at seventeen, Nor seventy. There is neither gloom nor death In this world, only clarity and light. We are all already on the shore of the sea, And I am one of those who pulls in nets, When immortality swims by like a shoal. 2 Live in a house — and the house won’t collapse. I will summon any of the centuries, I will enter it and build a house in it. Here is why your children and your wives Are seated with me at a single table, — At a single table, your ancestor and grandson: The coming time is being enacted now, And if I raise my arm up just a little, All five of the rays will remain with you. I propped up every day of the past, Supporting with my collarbones. I measured time with a surveying chain, And passed through it, as if through the Urals. 3 I picked the age according to my stature. Going south, we held dust over the steppe; The tall weeds smoked; the grasshopper made mischief, Touched horseshoes with its whisker, and prophesied, And threatened me with destruction, like a monk. I fastened my fate to the saddle; And now, in the coming times, like a boy, I raise myself up halfway in the stirrups. For me my immortality is enough, That my blood should flow from age to age. For a faithful corner of unchanging warmth I would pay wilfully with my own life, Whenever its flying needle Would lead me, like a thread, around the world.

__________________________________________________

1. Back then I did not quite understand what was going on, why in the Soviet Union they built a wall of silence around the best film director the country had. Earlier that year, Tarkovsky went to film Nostalghia in Italy; although it was not in his plans to stay there for good, he was never to return to the USSR.
2. During the Spanish Civil War, thousands of children were evacuated from the Republican zone, including to the Soviet Union. They were not allowed to return to Spain until after Stalin’s death.